


the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed

by aurilly



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 15:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3773320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan moves in with Victor after his inn becomes 'mysteriously' uninhabitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitmarlowed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/gifts).



> I'm sure this will be jossed immediately by the season premiere, but...

Victor had been scrubbing since early morning. The old books had been packed into a new corner, below the Shakespeare, but above more speculative treatises. The rudimentary electrical devices were now sealed in something dry. The ceramic slab moved into a corner.

All that remained to extinguish was the smell. 

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t really tried with Brona. The memory of Ethan weeping over her body stayed with him more powerfully than he’d expected it to, overwhelming any debt his creation insisted Victor owed him.

Victor had buried her, quietly, without a priest or prayers, as had sounded like her wish. He’d looked for Ethan once the evidence of his experiments had been removed, but Ethan was nowhere to be found. Enquiring at the tavern over which he lived proved impossible. The papers had recently been about nothing but the latest unsolved mass dismemberment. Victor feared Ethan had died in the fight, but had no way of knowing. Reports said that the bodies were too mutilated to identify. Sir Malcolm and Vanessa had gone back to the country to bury what remained of Mina, taking Sembene with them; if Ethan was alive, it was unlikely they had seen him either.

The lab was already spotless. Victor scrubbed to rid his mind of guilt and worry more than stains.

After the excitement and constant companionship of the past few months, he found the return of his previous isolation hard in a way he’d never noticed before. He had thought, all this time, that he alone had discovered a way to cheat nature, a loophole. But in a few weeks time, he had witnessed so many permutations of that loophole that he no longer knew in which direction to point his flag. He no longer knew if the ground beneath him had ever been solid enough to hold it.

He left the lab and was locking the heavy door behind him when he heard breathing behind him. He turned around to find Ethan sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and his long legs stretched out in front of him. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t I stop by just to say hi to an old friend?”

“You can, but you aren’t the sort who does.”

Ethan grimaced in pain as he got up. Victor noticed he had some gashes on the palm of his hand. Wherever he’d been during the past few days, he’d been living roughly.

“I need a place to stay.”

“I should think you do. Your previous residence is a shambles. It’s a lucky thing you weren’t home that night.”

Ethan grimaced again. “Yeah. Lucky.”

Victor didn’t know why he offered, but something about Ethan had always driven him to speak rashly, whether in challenge or out of spleen, or… something else. “As you can see, I have little more than the people who live in the stairwell of this building. But you are welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”

“Thanks, doc. Means a lot.”

Ethan shivered, and Victor put on the kettle. 

“What happened to you? You disappeared,” he asked, watching Ethan walk slowly around the space.

“You ever heard of the Pinkertons?”

“No. What are they?”

“American mercenaries, mostly. They’ve been on my tail for a while. Trying to extract me back to the States.”

“You don’t want to return there?”

“Let’s just say there are some things in my past I’d like to turn my back on.” He sighed. "Doesn't help if they follow you to the present, though."

As much as he was curious, Victor didn’t think it his business to pry. “And so you have been hiding from them since I last saw you. Is that it?”

Ethan collapsed in one of two chairs Victor owned. “Yes and no.”

“Why didn’t you come before?”

“Wasn’t safe.”

“I doubt these Pinkertons know of our association. Surely hiding with me would be safer than going it alone on the street?”

“Didn’t say it was safer for me,” Ethan said.

This was mysterious. Victor didn’t know how to respond.

“What’s behind that door?” Ethan asked, pointing to the spot from whence Victor had emerged.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Aw, come on, you know you can trust—”

“I need your word. I need your word that for as long as you stay here, you will not open that door. Promise me now, or leave.”

“All right, all right, doc. I promise.”

“Very well, then,” Victor said solemnly, “we have an arrangement.”

* * *

Although they’d only known one another for a short time, Victor received a summons from the lawyer handling Van Helsing’s estate. The old doctor had bequeathed his library of vampire lore and research to Victor. 

“You seem to have gained two father figures in a pretty short amount of time,” Ethan remarked as he helped Victor haul the books across town. 

“And have lost both in equally short shrift,” Victor replied.

“Sir Malcolm will be back from the country soon.”

“He found his Mina. You rid Miss Ives of her possession. What use am I to Sir Malcolm now? He will go back to Africa, or to his club, or whatever he used to do. It will be as though we never met.”

“You think this is over?” Ethan asked. “You can’t be that naïve. Sir Malcolm will be back at our door before you know it.”

Victor noted, but did not remark upon Ethan’s use of the plural possessive.

* * *

After Vanessa’s confinement, Victor had returned to spending his nights at the autopsy rooms and his days going through Van Helsing’s work. His latest project revolved around finding ways to combine the departed doctor's work with he had learned from his work creating Caliban and Proteus. There might be applications to cure other victims with Mina’s affliction.

He had no idea what Ethan did with his time. Ethan said he spent the days—and some of his nights—working, but never liked to talk about it. Whatever it was, it was probably less than savory. He certainly never volunteered, and Victor was above asking. 

Ethan had claimed the room’s only two chairs, sitting in one and putting his feet up on the other to sleep. Victor stumbled up the stairs every dawn to find Ethan on his way to falling asleep, having arrived home only a few minutes before.

About a week into their arrangement, Ethan arrived later than usual. The scraping and shuffling noises he was making to position the chairs quickly became insupportable.

“Stop that row,” Victor snapped from the bed.

“Sorry, doc. I’m just—”

“There’s room here. Anything to silence that ghastly noise.”

If he’d been more awake, he would never have proposed such a thing. But it was too late to retract the offer. Retracting would have required more words, which he wasn’t certain he was awake enough to voice. 

“Thanks, Dr. F,” Ethan said as he flopped down beside him.

Victor had been meaning to tell Ethan that, as cohabitants, they had moved past formal names. However, he rather liked the moniker, and did not want to lose it. So, he merely grumbled incoherently in reply.

Ethan put off an uncommon amount of heat. He was better than Victor’s thin blankets.

After that, collapsing together on the bed became part of their routine. The chairs remained blessedly undisturbed.

* * *

“Do you ever get any nights off?” Ethan asked one afternoon, when they’d both woken up but were too tired to get out of bed. 

Ethan’s long hair was tangled around his face. Victor slowly retracted the arm that had found its way to Ethan’s back during the night. The arm often found its way there. Ethan was generous enough not to mention it.

“I could take one if I wanted to,” Victor said. “My schedule is my prerogative. I established that with the proprietor when I first began my employment.”

“Well, call it in tonight.”

“Why?”

“We should do something.” Ethan smiled wide. He seemed quite pleased with himself. “I’ve finally got the hang of this city. Might as well enjoy it. Something tells me you know the place even less than I do.”

He was right, but Victor had no desire to admit it.

* * *

Victor had learned over the past few weeks that Ethan was far from the boorish ignorant like liked to affect, but he hadn’t expected him to care for Shakespeare. 

“Is this for my benefit?” he asked as they entered the theatre.

“Believe it or not, I like Shakespeare almost as much as you do.”

“Is it because you’re an actor?” Victor asked.

Ethan chuckled. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret.”

“Which is?”

“I’m the worst actor you’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve never technically seen you act.”

“It’s for the best. I can only play roles that I already am.”

To Victor's surprise, Vanessa joined them in the box. She looked well, calmer since her ordeal.

“I didn’t know you were back in London,” Victor said.

“I only just returned.” She looked between Ethan and Victor with something strange in her eye. “I thought you preferred the bard in isolation, doctor. The sonnets more than living interpretations.”

They had indeed discussed this weeks ago, though he had hoped she wouldn’t bring it up tonight. 

“Would’ve picked something else if I’d known that,” Ethan said, looking just as miffed as Victor had feared he might.

“I make exceptions,” Victor replied.

* * *

“And how is this arrangement treating you?” Vanessa asked at intermission, while Ethan was in the line for the lavatories.

“With Mr. Chandler, you mean?”

“'Mr. Chandler'. Do you really still stand upon such ceremony with one another? Do any of us? You have seen me at my most undone.”

“None of you have seen me at mine,” he replied.

“I suppose that’s true. You would do well to peel back the veil. At least among us. We are all sworn together, you know, by the things we have seen. None of us are in a position to judge. We could even help.”

Victor thought of Caliban's departure, but knew that he could return any day, angry and threatening once more. 

“I’ll consider it.”

“Sir Malcolm invited him to come stay at Granage Place, you know,” Vanessa said next. 

“When?” Victor asked. The news surprised him; Ethan had never mentioned it.

“A few days before Miss Croft’s passing, and a few days afterwards. The first time, he responded by saying that he wanted to spend time with her. The second time, he said he wanted to find his own way.”

“Yet he ended up with me,” Victor said. He thought, to himself, that Ethan must have already known he would seek refuge with him when Sir Malcolm had made the offer, must have already known Victor would say yes.

“He did,” Vanessa said with a smile. “He went to you though he might have had a large bedroom in a fashionable house all to himself. The best London has to offer. Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“Well,” he said, thinking. “He doesn’t quite trust Sir Malcolm. I hope you don’t resent me saying so.”

“Not at all. It is only wise, in most cases. But I don’t think that was the reason.”

“And what do you propose is the real reason?”

She smiled enigmatically. “I leave that to you to discover. Ah, there you are,” she continued, as Ethan approached again. “just in time for the second act to begin. So different from our last intermission together. Do you remember? I feel lucky that I was able to meet your Miss Croft, even for so brief a moment.”

“I’m glad you got the chance, too. Though I much prefer this evening,” Ethan said, and continued softly, “It isn’t kind to tease me about how that ended.” 

It took a lot to startle Vanessa, but Ethan appeared to have done so. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t remember? You were certainly free with it when…” Ethan stopped and stared at her. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Is this some riddle?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it, darlin’.” 

“Oh dear,” she said. “Now I know it’s serious.”

So did Victor.

* * *

Victor spent the rest of _The Winter’s Tale_ wondering what Vanessa had meant during their conversation, and to what Ethan had been referring that had so confused her.

He had some ideas about the latter, but fewer about the former. 

After the play, they said their goodbyes and put Miss Ives in her carriage. 

The street most probably was not the proper place for such a conversation, but Victor had long since ceased to care about the opinions of strangers.

“Ethan,” he asked. “May I ask you a question? You are free not to answer.”

“Shoot.”

“When Miss Ives was…”

“If you say ‘indisposed’, I’ll kick your skinny ass. Come on, out with it.”

“Fine,” Victor said. “When she was possessed.”

“There you go.”

“She said things to me. She knew things there was no way she could know, quoted conversations for which she had not been present. Things I’d said, things I’d done. Things I _haven’t_ done.”

“You want to know if the things she said to me that day were true.”

Victor nodded. 

“No use denying it, if the same thing happened to you,” Ethan said. “But yes, it was true. Every word. I’m assuming so anyway. Never did ask Brona about her part in things. Not exactly an ideal subject to bring up when someone’s dying.”

“I would say not,” Victor agreed. “But you didn’t mind?”

“Not my place to judge when I don’t know the particulars. Not sure I ever want to either.”

“Who is this person?” Victor asked, and was surprised by his own pang of jealousy. “It is unlikely, you must admit, for all three of you to…”

“I think he’s like me,” Ethan interrupted. “Like Vanessa. Cursed.”

This was the first time he had acknowledged it, even ambiguously.

“You think he is possessed?” he asked. “Or you think he is a werewolf?”

As expected, this caused Ethan to stop and stare.

“You know?”

“Doctor Van Helsing’s research contained information relevant to this malady,” Victor coolly replied. “The cuts on your hands. The condition of the bodies as reported in the press. Your multi-day absence from the flat last week, coinciding perfectly with the full moon. All the clues point to a single explanation.”

“You don’t seem much bothered.”

“Nothing much bothers me. I’d like to test you, if you’ll let me. See what properties your blood holds. Perhaps there’s a cure. Or some other application. I am not half the hematologist Van Helsing was, but I’d like to continue his work, if I can.”

“Better than continuing your old work, I’d say,” Ethan said. “I’m game for you to study me. I know by now you won't be shocked by what you find."

“What do you know of my old work?” Victor asked.

“You think that guy went away of his own accord?” Ethan replied. “You think he went away without me putting a little fear into him?”

Now it was Victor’s turn to be stunned. 

“Why?” he asked. “Why would you do that?”

“You _are_ a little slow on the draw, Vic,” Ethan said. “Maybe we need to pick up those shooting lessons again.”

Somehow, they’d jumped from formality to intimate, private nicknames. Victor felt whiplash. 

Bravely, he replied, “No, I think I mastered shooting. However, perhaps some of the examples in your analogies would be better explored in more detail.” 

Ethan threw his head back and laughed. “You know, for all that you’re a prissy dandy, you’ve got a mouth on you.”

Feeling as heady with success and excitement as he had down in Sir Malcolm’s basement, Victor replied, “You’ve barely put it to use.”

“Oh, I intend to.” 

The night was too dark for anyone to see Ethan take Victor’s hand and squeeze it. 

For once, Victor thought, the bed most likely would not feel six inches too narrow.


End file.
